EU Claims Russian Ships Violated Sanctions by Delivering Jet Fuel to Syria

Russia: Sanctions Don't Apply to Refueling Russia's Own Jets

There is a flurry of new speculation surrounding claims from an EU intelligence source that a pair of Russian ships “almost certainly” carried jet fuel to Russian planes in Syria, which may or may not violate EU sanctions against shipping fuel into Syria.

Obviously Russia isn’t automatically subject to EU rules, but the ships are said to have stopped off in Cyprus, which might change things, though the ships didn’t get the fuel there, and Cyprus can’t confirm that either ship actually had jet fuel on it in the first place.

Russia is downplaying the matter, insisting that the EU sanctions are meant to stop supplies to the Syrian military, and don’t apply to Russia shipping fuel for its own jets operating in Syria. The EU Foreign Affairs spokeswoman insisted it was up to individual EU member states to decide whether to do anything about it.

That’s unlikely, as Cyprus appears to be the primary nation involved, and they aren’t entirely clear anything happened, and were soliciting information from anyone who might have any on any activity that might contravene sanctions.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.